Healthy Heart!

How to keep your heart healthy.

How the heart works:

The heart is an organ made from muscle and beats continually to pump blood around the body. The heart is made of four chambers and has a right and left side divided by a muscular wall in the middle. These chambers are named the right and left atrium and the right and left ventricle. It is quite amazing how these 4 chambers make up two distinct pumps in which blood cannot move freely within the heart muscle.

A journey through the heart.

The right atrium receives the deoxygenated (no oxygen) blood and is pumped through the tricuspid valve through to the right ventricle.

From the right ventricle the blood is pumped upwards and outwards towards the lungs through the pulmonary arteries. This sends blood to the lungs to pick up oxygen (Oxygenation). From the lungs oxygenated blood makes it journey back to the heart through the pulmonary veins into the left atrium and continues to the mitral valve which pumps to the left ventricle.

From the left ventricle the blood passes through the aortic valve and finally exists the heart at the aorta to start its journey through the body again delivering oxygen and blood to organs that need it.

How to keep your heart healthy.

Diet and exercise play a vital role in keeping your heart healthy as well as not smoking, reducing stress and keeping a healthy weight.

On paper this all sounds simple, but in reality people need to make an effort and make time to accommodate and implement these practices into a busy and sometime chaotic lifestyle.

Here are some practical suggestions to help you along the way.

Exercise:

30 minutes a day in the form of walking, jogging, swimming or running can improve your heart health. However, by making exercise fun you won’t even feel you are making a huge effort. By this I mean you can take the dog for a vigorous walk, kick a ball with your kids or the neighbourhood kids, clean the house listening to dance music or swim a couple of laps in the back yard pool. Be creative and make your exercise fun. You are aiming to get your heart rate up for at least two minutes with a two minute break, every two minutes, so that you can still manage to talk but are a little breathless. And when undertaking your 30 minutes a day, you don’t have to do it all in one block. This is really good if you are time poor, as you have no more excuses. You could do 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes at lunch and 10 minutes when you come home from work. It could be as easy as power walking with a little run to and from the bus stop and taking the stairs two at a time at work.

Diet:

When developing a healthy eating pattern you need to implement changes that you will follow over days, weeks, months and years. And you can simply do this by following some rules, such as by eating more fruit, vegetables and wholegrains and eating less salt, less sugar and less saturated fats and Tran’s fats.

When you eat more healthily, you do not focus on one type of food and or one type of nutrient, but you do focus on a combination of foods, chosen at regular intervals over time.

Fruits, vegetables and wholegrains:

Fruits, vegetables and wholegrains offer plenty of vitamins, minerals and fibre.

Research suggests that people whom consume these foods regularly have healthy hearts. In addition, consumption of fruit, vegetables and wholegrains lowers the risk of heart disease.

Salt:

Some salt is needed for good health but most people consume too much when consuming a Westernised diet (packaged foods). Eating too much salt, also known as sodium, increases your risk for developing high blood pressure which in turn can lead to an increased risk of heart disease, stroke or kidney disease. Therefore, by limiting your intake of processed foods you are also limiting your salt and sodium intake.

This means when looking at nutrition labels choose from lower sodium options among similar foods. Foods with less than 400mg per 100grams is Ok, but less than 120mg per 100grams is even better.

Sugar:

Sugar in foods can be naturally occurring, such as in fruit or dairy products. However, sugar can also be added to processed foods to increase storage life, help food taste better and or help food hold its shape, think muesli bars. There is no scientific evidence that sugar contributes to heart disease. But sugar does increase the amount of kilojoules consumed each day which in turn may increase weight gain. Therefore, weight gain that leads to overweight and obesity can increase your risk of heart disease.

When looking at nutrition labels try avoiding large amounts of sugars. If sugar content is more than 15 grams per 100 grams, look at the ingredient list to see where that sugar is coming from. Alternate names for sugars include dextrose, fructose, glucose, golden syrup, honey, maple syrup, sucrose, malt, lactose, brown sugars, caster sugar and sucrose.

Fats:

Fats are an essential part of our diet and are significant for good health. However, there are different types of fats and this is where nutrition gets confusing.

So to clear things up let us start with unsaturated fats:

Poly (many) unsaturated fats, such as omega 3 fats found in fish and omega 6 fats found in nuts and oils, like safflower and soybean, and mono (single) unsaturated fats like olive, canola, avocado and nuts, like cashews and almonds, are necessary in small doses as part of a balanced diet to reduce the risk of heart disease and lower cholesterol levels.

Saturated fats, such as from fatty cuts of meat and processed meats like salami; processed foods like cakes, pastries and pies and sweet and savoury biscuits, can lead to an increased risk of heart disease and high blood cholesterol if consumed in great amounts. These foods should be enjoyed on occasion and make up the discretionary items list in the Australian Dietary Guidelines.

Trans Fats; are unsaturated fats that have been manipulated into a saturated fat to increase shelf life and add stability to a product which may be found in packaged foods and margarine. Eating products containing Tran’s fats can increase your levels of bad cholesterol and decrease the good cholesterol you have in your body. This is a major risk factor for heart disease.

Smoking: What smoking does to the heart?

Each time you light up a cigarette you are damaging vessels that supply blood to the heart and to other parts of your body. In addition, this also reduces the amount of oxygen you receive in your blood. Furthermore, smoking contributes to atherosclerosis which is a narrowing and clogging of the arteries that reduces blood supply and oxygen throughout the body.

If you are thinking of quitting smoking the number to call is 137848 or visit the Quit-line web page.

Reducing stress:

Low levels of stress is normal in everyday life. But when you are feeling stressed out, anxious or worried for long periods of time this can affect your health. Long term stress means you are living with the fight and flight hormone adrenaline (constantly). This increases your blood sugar levels, blood pressure and makes your muscles tense. Thus, increasing your risk of heart disease.

By managing stress and reducing it can help lower your risk. However, this is easier said than done when you may be already stressed out of your mind.

So here are a few tips to help you decide how you can implement changes to manage and reduce your stress.

1.       Find a network of friends/ family or a support group that you will be able to talk to, to find ways to manage your stress. Even talking about it out loud can help you get it off your chest and feel like some weight is shifted.

2.       Relaxation and breathing exercises can affect certain chemicals in your body to help you feel calm. Ask your doctor for advice on how and where you could access information to learn certain techniques, finding a wellness coach or going for a massage and or doing meditation may also help.

3.       Do some gentle exercise every day in the great out-doors. Being able to get some fresh air and being physically active can help lift your mood and make you feel more connected to nature.

4.       Plan some activities that you enjoy doing that makes you feel good, like a picnic, a walk on the beach, drawing, colouring in, knitting, playing a musical instrument or reading a book

Getting and Keeping a healthy weight:

To have a goal to maintain a healthy weight is a positive start you can do for your heart, health and wellbeing.

By visiting your GP or health care practitioner first for a complete health check-up is a great way to start and then an Accredited Practising Dietitian/ Nutritionist and talk to them about your weight and what your goal is to set a plan in action.

It may be that you may need to lose a little weight, change your eating habits and become physically active. However it is more important to aim for an integration of healthy habits rather than calorie restriction.

 Getting to a healthy weight

Losing weight in a healthy way takes time and requires commitment. Advertisement from Facebook ads and magazines that offer crash diets and promises losing weight fast, often suggest unhealthy ways to lose the weight and don’t offer advice on how to maintain weight loss in the long-term. Their way of dieting is not sustainable.

However, losing weight is all about mindset. Don’t think about your weight loss journey as ‘I’m on a diet’ which is short-term, but as a choice to put new habits in place that leads to a healthier life style.

And you can do this by thinking about how you can nourish your body with fresh foods daily for example, increasing your fruit and vegetable intake. In addition, eliminate and reduce highly processed foods like items that come in packaging, and take opportunities throughout your day to be as active as you can. Thus, leading you to achieve your weight loss goal.

If you are wanting to improve your health and well-being you can send me an email or give me a call. I am only too happy to help by offering simple suggestions on food and giving simple swap ideas. I also offer nutrition consultations, meal planning, run workshops on basic nutrition, cook for clients and have some great recipes that I can tailor to suit you and your needs. 

My eating philosophy is all about balance and creating long term healthy habits focusing on practical strategies for modern, busy people that encompasses variety and moderation.
 

References:

Heart Foundation. (n.d). How your heart works. Retrieved from https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/your-heart/how-your-heart-works

Leclerc, J., Bonneville, N., Auclair, A., Bastien, M., Leblanc, M.-E., & Poirier, P. (2015). If not dieting, how to lose weight? Tips and tricks for a better global and cardiovascular health. Postgraduate Medicine, 127(2), 173–185.

National Health and Medical Research Council (2013). The Australian Dietary Guidelines. Retrieved from https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au

Taylor, T. (2018). Why we should forget losing weight and focus on healthy habits. ABC Health and Wellbeing. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2018-01-21/set-aside-losing-weight-focus-on-healthy-behaviours/9345648